New Delhi, 16 May

Acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson's new film ‘The Phoenician Scheme’ will be released in Indian theatres on 6 June.

Described as "a dark and gripping tale of espionage that unravels the complexities of a strained father-daughter relationship”, the movie is brought to India by Universal Pictures (distributed by Warner Bros Discovery) and Dreamworks Animation.

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the main competition.

The movie features a star-studded cast of Benicio del Toro, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Mia Threapleton, Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, Michael Cera, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bryan Cranston.

Anderson, known for films like ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Darjeeling Limited’, ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ and ‘The French Dispatch’, has directed the movie from a story he wrote with Roman Coppola, son of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.

The film revolves around a fractured father-daughter relationship set within the confines of a powerful, secretive family-run business.

"When the daughter, once estranged from her enigmatic father, returns to uncover the truth about her family’s wealth, she stumbles upon a covert global operation entangled in political manipulation, surveillance, and betrayal," reads the official plotline.

Anderson said he wrote the movie specifically with the aim of collaborating with del Toro once again. The duo had earlier worked together on the 2021 movie "The French Dispatch".

"I first brought this up with Benicio in 2021, at Cannes for 'The French Dispatch'. I told him then that something was coming his way if he was interested. Benicio and I started working on it very early. As soon as there were fifteen pages of the script, he’d seen that. There was never a moment in the process when Benicio was not involved," the director said.

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is produced by Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson and John Peet.